


The Herald Precedes the Prince

by gentle_herald



Category: Henry V (1989), Henry V - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M, Medieval Music, Politics, Treaty of Canterbury 1416
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 22:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15567579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentle_herald/pseuds/gentle_herald
Summary: Montjoy crosses and re-crosses the Narrow Sea in the service of France, England, and himself.





	The Herald Precedes the Prince

**Author's Note:**

> Enormous thanks to cheshireArcher for the beta and everything Charles. Without you this would be dead in the water.

A ship, tossed across the Narrow Sea towards Henry. Montjoy keeps below decks, out of the crew's way and the driving rain; he writes dispatches and reports. He mentally rehearses his greeting to Henry and plays scenes over in his mind. He has missed the English court and its directness, its relative honesty – both traits, he admits, that stem from its King. 

News of the French defeat has had time to well and truly circulate around England. People everywhere are singing a new carol under their breath; its words form a background to Montjoy's thoughts.

A Welshman ushers Montjoy into Henry's presence.  _Our_ _Kynge_ _comely_ , supplies his mind, unprompted.  _In Agincourt_ _feld_ _he fought manly_. 

When he arrives, hiding exhaustion, Henry looks genuinely happy to see him; Montjoy would know. He spent the days after Agincourt learning the king's moods, his masks, his faces – in the name of diplomacy, of course. No herald in Europe would now challenge his claim to be the expert on the English court and its enigmatic king, though he would never make such a claim. What remains of the French leadership has sent him to follow Henry to London and exert what influence he can for a more lenient settlement, if not a withdrawal of troops. 

Henry offers him a place in the English College of Heralds. Worn out by years of trying to salvage hopeless situations for the increasingly incompetent French and the dull knowledge that Henry must eventually rule France, he accepts. 

At the bottom of his trust lies a knife, rusting but still sharp: this is the King. But Henry rules both sides now, and Montjoy can speak both languages. Between them there is the intimacy of thinking alike in a slippery world. There is confidence that sprang out of the bloody mud of Agincourt and began as grudging respect for the enemy in battle-tents and negotiating chambers. 

It is night, and rain slides down the leaded window as if Westminster's walls are a riverbed. It is spring, but in England it rains in all seasons.

He is translating: French and Latin and German, strung together in formal invitation to the Holy Roman Emperor. 

"To our well-beloved brother Sigismund..." The Holy Roman Emperor will meet a stalemate in France – Montjoy has spent long enough among the Armagnacs and Burgundians to know they would rather surrender France to subjugation than trust each other. Sigismund will fail in France and walk into our arms. His alliance is England’s to lose, and for the sake of the Crown and the Church we must not lose him. 

It is August, and he is grateful for the chill of the stone walls. Montjoy keeps writing: a note, now, to Henry's brother the Duke of Bedford:  _I have had word from Dunstable – the motet is complete. Will you come hear it?_  A politeness, to be signed by the King. 

Sigismund is stubborn – he wants to be the statesman who brings England and France together. England cannot allow that; it cannot be an equal to the country it is trying to conquer. But Sigismund came close, and it had only been the factions’ stubbornness that prevented it. That saved us, thinks Montjoy, arrayed in the surcoat of an English herald. There is still a little twist of guilt in his gut at having – deserted? It was not a desertion, not if the men who are supposed to lead the country allow its people to be slaughtered. There was nothing he could do to save France. Not with d’Albret dead and Orélans a prisoner of the English and dear King Charles mad.  

The treaty is to be a splendid occasion with all the glory of England on display and music at its centre; sacred music of thanksgiving for a King blessed with victory. A king of justice and wisdom, of grace and mercy. Henry has commissioned a motet from Bedford's composer, John Dunstable. It will be in the new style, the English sound, majestic and worthy to assert England's primacy in Europe. 

 

The most painful journey he makes is with Orléans, taking the noble prisoner to Pontefract. It was King Richard’s last prison and Montjoy wonders if his compatriot knows. The duke tries not to speak to him, Montjoy can tell, but fails after only a day. 

"Herald..." Montjoy looks up from the simple line of his horse's neck. He knows what's coming; when Henry offered to assign another herald to this task, Montjoy made his decision. He cannot live in England and work towards obscure ends without justifying it somehow, and his justification is honesty. If he can face any man and explain his purpose, then there is nothing to be ashamed of. 

"How can you work for the destruction of France?" It's an accusation: you are colluding with our enemies. It's a plea: you are taking me, your old superior, to be prisoner of a king who has crippled our country.  As if he heard Montjoy's thoughts, Orléans bursts out again: "This is treason against our country and King. Our country, Montjoy. You are a Frenchman, not some English lackey."

Orléans and the men like him can never understand why. For all their wealth, their titles, their power, their command, none will ever know as much of the world as this herald has. With every journey across Europe, Montjoy has  come to see that France does not always need to be at war to keep its stature and that other kings can prosper without threatening his, if they are well managed. He hates war above all, but he also hates ignorance, fear, and suspicion – all of which he finds at the French court. Other lands have as much learning or more than France. Trade is being sadly neglected as a method of alliance-building. The Saracens know almost infinitely more about the world than we do, but all you tell of them is how they eat babies. 

Montjoy cares less and less for countries themselves by the year, but more and more for the people who live in them. These people don't need high, abstract talk of chivalry and Christendom if its price is war between nations which should be brothers in Christ anyways. Read Augustine of Hippo, he wants to tell Orléans. France, England, and Europe are the City of Man. Maybe by looking twice, by caring less for our pride and more for our people, we can lay the first bricks of the road to the City of God. 

 He turns in his saddle to face Orléans. The duke is well dressed for the road but nothing can protect him from this kind of world-undermining change, and Montjoy gives one great twist of sympathy and absorbed grief.

"I have a plan that there could be peace," he says, feeling inadequate and ashamed for no good reason he can identify. Old beliefs linger even when you think you've grown past them.

"Peace? English tyranny!" 

   
"The English are people much as we are. They are willing to work for peace and I can work with them." It's a diplomat's measured response, but he isn't getting through; the more he speaks, the more urgent his point feels.

"You're a mercenary, going to whoever pays you best. No honour." Orléans fairly spits the words and they do sting, because they are perilously close to what Montjoy has worried before. But it is love not pay that draws him. And there's something even greater that he can't articulate to a man who will never understand his vision for Europe.

"I go where I can do the greatest good. Stubborn pride helps no one." Oh. That wasn't meant to be a dig against the duke, but he can't see how it will be taken as anything but. He regrets it already. 

"Or is it Henry you follow? His spaniel begging for attention. Or something else entirely – power. He gives you free reign and you order about your old king. Do you know what happens to men like you?"

Oh. Montjoy's herald's training hasn't quite deserted him, and he keeps a neutral posture. Orléans can't see his face, but that is blank as well. A serious infraction of his diplomatic immunity and King Henry will answer. But, to be fair, Montjoy admits with shame that he may just have provoked this. It's up to him to diffuse the situation as far as he can, and fear is churning inside his chest. It is a rare emotion for Montjoy, but more frequent as of late, since he abandoned his position as a well-respected Valois herald.  _Men like you_. He means sodomites, Montjoy is sure. Or power-hungry traitors. Either is bad and both strike too close to home. There is no defense against the first charge: if Henry offered his bed, Montjoy would jump at the chance. He has admitted this to himself and almost made his peace with it, knowing it is impossible. The second – yes. He has taken Henry's directions and run with them. Yes. He wants to reshape Europe and that involves considerable detachment from fealty. It is only treachery if you believe in countries in the first place. Otherwise, it is a step towards the future. Does he want power? He wants the world set to rights and he is the only man he can see doing that.

Quietly, then: an attempt to reach past the argument. " Have you never loved?" Montjoy knows the truth; the chink in Orléans' armor. Orléans rides, silent, as the sun beats down on them, but the grief is plain in his posture and face when they halt for the night a short while later. He is wearing the late Constable of France's signet ring on his left ring finger. Catching Montjoy's eye over their fire, he quickly switches it to his right, but Montjoy slips him a small smile, as kind as he can make it. Montjoy has known for months. The Constable was a good man and a loyal Orleanist. Stubborn and proud, but a good man. Maybe if he had survived Agincourt, Orléans would be less bitter. 

So there it is – an unbridgable gap between the duty of a Valois herald and whatever he is becoming with Henry. Montjoy lies awake that night and watches the underside of the tree boughs bounce in the darkness, casting shifting, breathing shadows. He has travelled so far from who he was and what he stood for that all around him are unformed shadows now; shadows of the future and possibilities not yet hardened into a single path. 

His mind writhes away from these thoughts. I've changed, he thinks, and remembers striding into the French throne room as an outsider king's renegade herald. He doesn't fear for his reputation any more. The English are ruthless that way, and he is English now. 

At Westminster, Henry listens to him, bent over the low table between their chairs. Facing him: his equal. Montjoy has dreams for Europe; Henry has plans for England. We know how useful we are to each other. We think and do and hold each other up. He gives me scope, power, and the discretion to act as I see fit. I give him a voice abroad and a loyal, observant adviser who know Europe's courts first hand. Together, we sent to Sigismund, who shares my imagined united Europe. He recognized the Lancastrian kings of England, but more importantly, we are one step closer to England and France united; England and the Holy Roman Empire.

Have I changed too much? There are so many who think as Orléans does and so few who are like Henry. I am in danger. If Orléans, or Sigismund, or any other lords whose ears I need see me as Henry's toy or his manipulator, this whole project will fail. I will never be safe without Henry's power at my back, and even then. So far from a herald's duty. A real herald never makes policy. He is neutral and speaks only with the voice of his country. 

I cannot continue like this.

But Christendom united? Give it up? Is there another way to go at it?

So how do you walk back from the edge without losing face? Arrogance is a young man's mistake, a green herald's on his first mission; Montjoy of all people should have caught this failing sooner. He knows it. 

How much damage has been done? That is always the next question in a diplomatic situation. Orléans suspects him of being Henry's lover, which as much as Montjoy wishes it was, is not true yet: discount that. He has, publicly and quickly, become the English ambassador to France; the rumor is that he calls the shots at Westminster. Partly true. Henry trusts his advice in matters of European politics. Is this cause for concern? It is certainly outside a herald's remit. 

This project of uniting Christendom only worsens these half-truths which twine around each other and threaten him with barely concealed fangs. Can Europe be brought together? Kings seem intent on their own petty politics. They will never accept a treaty that feels as if it comes from England; worse yet, from the traitor herald who has insinuated himself close to the English throne. After this day, he has no illusions, only hard-kept dreams. He will not abandon those.

For England's good I need to back away... For England? England is just one more country. But it could be brought to invasion and war by a weak king, and Henry seems weak, Montjoy thinks. As long as I appear to have influence over him, he will never be respected and feared in Europe. 

At Westminster, some weeks later, king and herald talk of inconsequential matters. The herald is fresh from the road; he has changed his clothes and eaten, but not slept. They don't look each other in the eye. Henry knows what passed between Montjoy and Orléans; Montjoy told him in a sealed dispatch. It was one of the most painful letters he has written: an offer of resignation. Does Henry know it is a veiled declaration of love? What could be more inappropriate in this situation? But look again: when a man offers to give up his dream to protect another, how many ways are there to read that? Enough to dissimulate, surely, but all are shades of the same word. 

They lapse into silence. At last, Henry speaks with a strangely soft look in his eyes. Montjoy habitually notices these things about people, and nothing is an accident around Henry.

The king says, "We will miss our conversations, Montjoy, if you do indeed leave us. But we hope it need not come to that." And seeing Montjoy bite off a reply, drops a layer of tension and command he holds around himself like a cloak; like the great chain of state. "I would miss you if you were to leave me."

Montjoy will not allow himself the comfort of cowardly silence. He has come here determined to find the truth and make an end. "It's as I wrote, your Grace. Orléans and doubtless others like him think our projects treason and us - sodomites. I don't need to remind you of King Richard and King Edward. Of Gaveston and Bushy and Green. Things could be that bad, in time.  If I stay at court you could lose all influence on the Continent and at home."

"Montjoy, there are some truths you need to know before you valiantly defend me from all rumors." Henry laughs bitterly: a disturbing sound Montjoy has never heard before. "If men brand me a sodomite, there is truth to it. No, not recently, not since I have been king. I have not had any lovers since I was king, for that matter." He breaks off, watches Montjoy for a response. "Are you horrified by that? You didn't seem disgusted in your letter. Just worried."

Montjoy's heart is pounding: surely, Henry must know what he's thinking. The man is a warrior and a shrewd judge of men and anyways, Montjoy thinks it might be advantageous to let his responses show a little, here. 

"I have never lain with a man, Henry," he says, using the king's name with deliberate emphasis. "I have wanted to. That’s not what I fear."

"Your fear?"

"Overstepping a herald's duty. Leading you into danger and war when you should be commanding me. Losing my friend."

"It's a rare man who would willingly offer up the power I've given you," says Henry, stately, assured. "And so, more than ever, I do not think I have erred in trusting you so." 

"But maybe in how it seems."

"Yes. We will change that. Together. But listen, Montjoy. I have many councillors; why should you not be one of them, and dear to me besides that? A king is permitted his advisors and believe me, I will not be controlled. Your honesty and dedication mark you as a prince among heralds. Among men."

"Men talk. If nothing changes, you will be in as much danger as before."

"Yes. We will take pains to establish your respectability. Our foreign policy, however -"

"Will need to change. I understand."

"Maybe it can be come to by a subtler route. Look to Sigismund. He has his own ends, but we can still work together a great part of the way, I think. You will never be as trusted as you were with the Valois: that is how heraldry works. As you know, it is not permitted to change allegiances easily. But here is a lesson in how politics works: much can be changed and forgiven. And it is about humans, who change sometimes slowly, or rashly, or not at all. It is not a game between heralds who are by and large an open-minded lot and who play with the subtlest shadings of words. A country is made up of all types of people, and they have more power than you see at first. They can bring down a king. You are beginning to see, I think. Orléans is just the beginning."

"So abandon it."

"So change it. You will have to keep your ideas about countries and loyalty to yourself. Those are dangerous in England or abroad and I need my subjects' loyalty as much as any king. Thoughts like those are a luxury we cannot afford. I have killed men for less, and I will do so again if I have to." 

They stay silent like that for a long time: frozen in chairs, staring into the merry, apple-red fire. Montjoy examines his hands in excruciating detail and then Henry's eyes. Henry is collected, self-possessed. He is not a king, Montjoy remembers, to be trifled with. Europe forgets that. He forgets it, on the lonely road. He has revealed vulnerability tonight but also power he uses easily and naturally. Montjoy grapples with his morals; Henry gives him nearly infinite time. At last, the herald pushes himself upright and crosses the small space between them, determined not to show his fear. This is a ritual that calls for reverence. It is a new beginning, a holy oath, a sort of worldly baptism. He kneels.

"Your Grace, I would swear myself to you before witnesses." 

Henry rises and goes out. He thinks he sees a small smile on the King's face: Montjoy needn't have done this, but it is the best action he could have taken. He knows he has made the right choice, though it will be another upheaval in his world. Montjoy waits, awkward but determined not to show fear. Henry returns with Bedford.

A herald does not wear a sword. His oath is not a knight's. Henry takes his hands.

"Herald Montjoy, do you give your life, service, and fealty into Our keeping?" 

"I do." 

"Do you swear to faithfully represent and uphold Our decrees at home and abroad and to work to the best of your ability to bring them to fruition?"

"I do."

"Do you swear to serve Us and Our lawful successors in good faith as long as you shall live or until you are released from Our service?"

"I do." His voice does not shake. He grips Henry's hands tighter. 

"I, King Henry the Fifth, swear on my crown and holy anointing that I shall endeavor to be a good and wise king, lord, and master to you. You will be rewarded or disciplined according to the measure of your loyalty. Rise, Montjoy, herald of England. We are grateful for your service and your oath."

A glance at Bedford: thank you. Leave us now. He does, with a polite nod of his head and a kind but unreadable smile. 

"Montjoy," says Henry, drawing the herald close. "Thank you. I couldn't have asked that of you. But you knew."

Montjoy is going to cry. He can't speak. Is this why men are willing to follow Henry to the death? He will, now. He isn't free to think about a Europe without politics and princes, not when he has sworn before God and men to put his king first. If his vision of Europe were to work, it would compromise Henry just as surely as it would the rest. He has laid down his plan in exchange for – for what? An unconfirmed love. A powerful, charismatic king who sees into men's hearts. Good things to fight for, if you're a warrior. He is not, but as of today his allegiance is as unquestionable as a true knight's. Three Herald Montjoys in two years. Henry is remaking the world around him, and it isn't the world Montjoy thought it would be. That world has receded into the mist. He sends a prayer after it: come again in a time where you can be welcome. Where you can bring peace. He rests his head on Henry's shoulder and weeps. 

Henry holds him, rocking a little. Go, now. Sleep.

 

Montjoy returns to London after Michaelmas, before the roads and rivers close for the winter. His barge glides up the Thames as the docks are disappearing into shadow. Westminster’s lights glint on the oily, black surface, and as the barge bumps against the jetty he feels an unexpected tug towards home. He rises, gathering his travelling cloak around him. The bargeman hands him his bags. “My thanks, Walt.” He climbs the dark stairs, pauses in the flaring torchlight at the top to look back downriver, toward France, then forward, along the path to Westminster. Guards recognize him, lead him through darkened cloisters and archways. He can smell dry leaves and grass nearby but not see them. There is no one else around. And Montjoy, savouring the last moments of purposeful, solitary movement, thinks contentedly, I’m coming home to him. 

A light knock at the door: he is called to Henry's private rooms to find the king scratching away at a scrap of parchment. 

"A Sanctus," says Henry, saving him the embarrassment of trying to subtly read the documents upside down. "Do you sing?"

"A little," admits Montjoy. 

"Would you try this? I haven't heard it sung yet."

"I've no great voice, your Grace."

"I don't mind. Try it anyways? I sing tenor."

Montjoy draws the parchment across the desk and examines it, picking out the bass part.

A pause. Ready? Henry nods, and Montjoy begins to sing by sight, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice. He's rarely sung on his own, and while his education as a herald included courtly arts such as music-making, some have fallen out of practice. And something about this unexpected request confuses him. Henry has his Chapel Royal to sing his compositions much better than I can, he thinks. Why does he ask this of me?

It's an effort to keep to Henry's languid, stately tempo, but Montjoy finds himself enjoying it. The music is simple but skillfully written. Montjoy pours all his focus into singing, and by extension, onto Henry, who leads them. They breathe together, ears straining to keep in harmony. Montjoy stares at Henry's face without a shred of embarrassment, and he's fairly sure the King is doing the same, though he's too caught up in the momentum of the music to properly consider this. 

They glide to a halt: Henry grinning at Montjoy, who smiles back, slightly dazed. 

"You give yourself too little credit, Montjoy," says Henry, and Montjoy wonders at the use of his name. 

"The piece was masterfully done," he demurs. 

"I think it needs a third part," says Henry, grinning, buoyant with evident pleasure in the music and – if Montjoy is not imagining things – the company. "Wine?"

It is an offer of companionship, Montjoy guesses: he accepts the cup. It is hot and spiced but unmistakably French. 

Both men are quiet, then. Montjoy thinks of Henry's rich voice and the shocking intimacy of singing with him. Henry is inscrutable, but he seems content with the situation. Montjoy thinks, where do I go from here? He doesn't want to leave the King yet; is afraid of being too forward. 

"A game of chess?" he asks, and Henry lights up. So he'd been waiting for something more to play at, another pretense to keep them together as well. 

Henry rises, roots in a chest to find his chess set. Montjoy pushes Henry's quills, ink, and parchment to one side, noting the sweep of Henry's handwriting. 

"Do you take red or white?" asks Henry, and Montjoy has to use all his self-restraint not to grin like a giddy fool. He raises both eyebrows. "Well, I'll guess," says Henry. "White, for your pure heart. You move second. You like sizing up the situation and then reacting." 

 "You're saying that because you take red and move first," says Montjoy, which wins a laugh from Henry. 

"And if both are true?"

One night, after a late conference over dispatches sent from the Council of Constance, he and Henry throw themselves on Henry’s bed and sleep, clothed, sprawled together. Montjoy wakes disoriented in the dark to find that Henry has pulled his boots off and drawn a blanket over both of them. He is used to strange beds shared with anonymous fellow travellers when the inns are crowded, but this tenderness surprises him. He is too tired to worry over it. When he next wakes it is almost bright daylight and Henry still sleeps exhausted beside him. 

His face is hard even in sleep. He is lying on the scarred side so Montjoy could pretend Henry is unmarked by war, but the kingship is obvious in the tightness at the corners of his mouth, in the clenching of his jaw, in the tiny wrinkles that are beginning to settle between his brows. He tentatively traces the line of his temple and Henry rolls closer, throwing an arm over Montjoy. 

Sometimes, he returns to England burdened with the frustration of seeing an advantage slipping away. There are deadlocks in Paris and he walks out once; walks out and rides away, sails back to England, and paces nervously until the French cave and send an envoy to reopen talks. 

Montjoy comes home elated. He comes home exhausted. Always, he goes first to Henry, who gives him supper in private. His baggage is sent separately to a room in the heralds’ quarters. He almost never sleeps there. 

When he finishes a Gloria, Henry shows it to Montjoy first. He has a psalter bound and illuminated; Montjoy watches the process intently. There is a moment when Henry wishes he could give it to him, but he is acutely conscious of his resolutions: to have no favourites, not in a way that could be complained of. Gifts make them both vulnerable.  Montjoy doesn’t seem to notice - it’s clear he loves the process more than the product. Henry watches him with John, heads bent conspiratorially together. Probably talking about books. He loves them. 

When he can, Henry visits Montjoy in his workroom. It’s tucked in a tower overlooking a busy courtyard: from here, Montjoy can see the palace’s comings and goings. Everything inside speaks strongly of him: the cloak hung on a peg on the back of the door, the rolled maps, many drawn by Montjoy himself, the wide oak writing-desk, spread with dispatches, the strongbox of sensitive papers. Everything could be found in another ranking herald’s office, but the fact that Montjoy works here makes Henry look carefully. He shares it with another herald, younger, who spends much of his time on the Scottish border. Henry, closing the door behind himself and taking a note from Montjoy, finds he is grateful for that. 

Sometimes, alone in a capital of Europe and too jittery to sleep, Montjoy thinks of Henry. He is not just the king whose words he haggles over during the day, but a man who would so enjoy this city, its books and cathedral and university. A man he misses talking to in the evenings, whose input he misses, whose debates and quiet company have given him for the first time something other than his work and his country to love. He begins to write Henry an entirely personal, non-dispatch letter. 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the motet Dunstable writes: Preco Preheminenciae. Strictly speaking, the herald is John the Baptist and he precedes Christ, the prince. But of course it has its political meaning: John of Bedford broke Bernard d'Armagnac's siege of Harfleur. And Montjoy is quite literally the herald who precedes the king. 
> 
> The full text in Latin and English is [here](http://www.toddtarantino.com/hum/dunstable.html)


End file.
